Teaser: Saffron, a shawl for leaving the Maiden House

The pattern I've been working on for over a year, a screen-accurate copy of the red shawl worn by Saffron in Our Mrs Reynolds, is nearly ready! Watch this blog for updates regarding the release.

Thanks go out to my volunteer tech editor and the brave test knitters in the BigDamnKnitters group at Ravelry.

This pattern will be a free PDF download, available through Ravelry and my document shelf at Scribd. I will make announcements here, at livejournal, and on Ravelry.

Day 60: Net

 

Net (2000?) Digital illustration, done in Fireworks. Incorporates text of a poem as a design element.

Day 59: Creative Hands

 

Creative Hands (1999) Digital collage.

This was my favorite portion of an attempt to communicate the feeling of the creative process though symbols.

Day 56: IF: Citrus

 

Limonade (2007) Digital. Mouse-drawn in Illustrator.

Another late-ish entry into Illustration Friday. Intended as a spot illo, to the theme "Citrus."

Day 49: Doubletake versions

 

Doubletake (original drawing) (1987)Gouache over technical pen over pencil on bristol. Pencils erased prior to coloring. Coloring done about 1990.

 

Double-negative (1995?) Xerox of uncolored original, cut out with an xacto and glued down to a black background.

I've always liked this image, so I've played with it a few times over the years. I colored the original inked drawing a few years after I made it, and had made xeroxes before that, in case I wanted to play with the image. The negative version is one of those playful versions.

days 47 and 48: Sketchbook

 

Ink study of baby (2007) ink on sketch paper, no pencils.

 

Girl's face (2007) inked and colored sketch of a girl's face

Two small drawings from my sketchbook.

PSA: weekends I think I'll be posting both days at once, so I can spend time away from the computer.

Day 45: Salamander

Salamander (2007) Colored character study. Pen, colored pencil. Scanned, cleaned and filtered for a watercolor effect.


This is a character study for the illustrations I'm doing for a children's story I'm writing. I'm still deciding on the format - graphic novel, picture book, or novel with incidental illos. I suppose it depnds on how much of the story I want to paint, and how much to write.

Day 37: Snow Fairy

 

Sonw Fairy (2002?) Gouache over pencil on marker paper (don't do this). Some retouching to fix paper rippling that didn't scan well.

I had to do some serious retouching of this quickie, because I chose to use dilute gouache on marker paper, and, of course, the paper rippled badly.

It's another anime/manga influenced piece, and I did it super-fast to fill a frame when decorating a new apartment a few years back.

Day 35: Nikon Eyes

The Girl With the Nikon Eyes (1997?, 2007) Original: pen and ink with later coloring using gouaches on bristol board. Digital version: Scanned, filtered for increased focal impact. Not retouched otherwise.

This may actually be an older work - I didn't date it, it may be as old as 1991 or 1992, in pen and ink form. I know I colored it around 1996 or 7. In any case, I was reading quite a bit of cyberpunk of some stripe or other at the time, and was particularly taken with the idea of camera-implants in place of eyes. I was also fond of anime. Still am.

The original image was okay, but not focused on the subject enough, and I was never able to really make it work, even when I gave in and colored it. The coloring helped, but not enough. The digital editing finally did the trick, though it took several iterations and layering of focalized blur and lighting effects to make it pop the way it's always been supposed to.

Days 33 and 34: tablet sketches

So, I spent the weekend digging around in boxes at Mom's and finally located my stylus. It was cunningly hidden in the bookshelf box for my copy of Adobe Illustrator. I'm so happy to have it back, but it's been so long I may have to relearn using it. A stylus is a thing between mousedrawing and using a pencil on paper, a bit of both and a little disconcerting to get used to. These are what I came up with today that was worth saving:

 

Wry Girl (2007) wacom tablet and Adobe Illustrator, stock brushes.
She's really very Lynda Barry. I didn't figure that out until I was done, but there she is. Maybe I was channeling or something... This is my first sketch with my tablet since getting it unpacked after a year.



Hope (2007) Adobe Illustrator, stock brushes, sketch from photograph with my good old Wacom ArtZII.

This is a quickie, illustration version of the IF subject theme for last week. My photographic version, really the first part of the process, is day 31. I thought I'd go ahead and finish what I started, even if the week is over, so here's what was in my head to begin with.

day 32: Irreconcilable Differences

 

Irreconcilable Differences (2007) Digital, mouse drawn in Adobe Illustrator.

My entry for Illustration Friday this week. The theme is Polar, and I got this strong feeling of "polar opposites" in human relationships and this is the quick result. Two people, so different in personality and views that they cannot even face each other. They are shown with simple lines, and backs turned, color and line expressing their essential difference.

Day 30: Birth Announcement

 

Birth Announcement (2003) Gouache and inks on bristol board over pencil. 11x14.

Celtic knotwork and calligraphy panel, meant to mark the brith of my first child.

Day 25: Penny

 

Penny (2007) Digital, Adobe Illustrator.

First - the inspiration is a ferret we live with (it's impossible to own something that habitually escapes). They are very calligraphic creatures, they almost seem to have been designed with brushes in mind. Odd, as their hair would certainly make a good artist's brush.

In any case, as I have spent a good bit of my time doing both pen and brush calligraphy, I have wanted to try and capture that essential mustelid line, which is so liquid, moreso even than Steinlen's cats. This would be my first attempt, consider it a figure study. It's all done with vector lines in Illustrator, mouse guided, as the stylus is still in parts unknown (I ought to just order a replacement).

If I ever get my sumi-e brushes unpacked, I'll try a real brushwork portrait of her. I'd be ashamed if I did not. Pixel pushing is a skill that still feels like cheating to me, no matter how hard it is and no matter that my hand still guides the tools. Maybe it's the "undo" feature that makes it feel that way.

Day 24: James, Sleeping

 

James, Sleeping (2007) Sketch, 7x11. Pencil on drawing paper, finger smudged/erased shadows and highlights.

This is a simple sketch of my sleeping infant. I can't tell you how weird it is to draw someone who is sleeping in your lap without disturbing them. I think I did well, for a quick, rough sketch.

I'm going to be doing more life-drawing exercises, and some of them will be good enough to post here.

Day 23: August Hunt

 

August Hunt (2004) Pencils, ink and gouache on bristol board.

Final composition of this piece, most of the comments are the same for the structure. However, the colorwork presented its own problems and challenges.

I had to match the two different blues in the arc of sky, and the gilding of the figures had to be done after the underpainting, so I referenced the pencil composition and the original work (which I was intentionally imitating) at every brushstroke. I had some difficulty with the lake and the stream, and I'm still not completely pleased with them. The rest of the landscape was fairly straightforward to color, as I've done many landscapes in gouache and watercolor, some of which I even like.

While the horses may seem clumsy, when compared to the original manuscript illustration, they are stylistically identical, and seemed, in the original, to have been created from templates. A typical technique involved pouncing powdered pigment through a pinpricked template to create a stylistically standard underdrawing. This enabled the master to concentrate on the fine colorwork, and his apprentices to do the bulk of the layout work without constant supervision, and without affecting the continuity of the piece.

I did not use pouncing to transfer the pencils to the final board, I used pressure transfer and overdrawing of the penciled design, as I did not wish to destroy the pencilled sheet.

The horses were colored from photographs of real horses belonging to the owner of the piece and her closest friend. The dogs are drawn from life - one is a breed standard pug, and the other is a pug mix, with a long snout. The owner does, indeed, possess brilliant red har.

Day 22: Herod and Salome

 

Herod and Salome (2003) 8x10 pen and ink Illustration, some digital cleanup. Intended for print.

This is one of a set of several pen and ink illustrations made from photographs of 12th century stone carvings, which were done for a small-press publication on the clothing of the era. I used about 10 different photographs of the particular piece as the source documentation, and I'm not even sure I consider it art - this feels more like a technical illustration of an extant artefact than my own art.

Day 17: Doubletake

 

Doubletake (1987) Study for serigraph. 9x12. Gouache and pencil on paper.

I may still have one of the serigraphs around here. This was the study for a series of 50 three-color, poster-sized serigraphs I did as my final project in my favorite design course in college, and my prof got the progressive set. The stencil film was hand cut, and I had to resize and manually do color seperations (black, red, silver) from my study. I did it the old-fashioned way, using a grid and a photocopy of the 9x12 design. I wish I still had the butcher paper I drew the seperations on, for cutting the films, but I cut through them to cut the films more accurately.

I'd love to do it again - and I mean the whole old-fashioned, hand-cut stencils, messy, dirty, unrefined silkscreening technique. I did another run of a different size with photo-sensitive stencil medium and I don't like it as much, it feels like cheating. If I'm going to do that, I might as well just print the things out on a printer, or send it off to a printing service. Serigraphy, for me,is about the process and getting my hands dirty.

It's now the oldest one here. It's twenty years old.

Note: yes, this one is late. I spent all of yesterday making tortillas and prepping dinner. I think I'm happiest when I'm getting my hands dirty. I'll do today's in a few minutes.

Day 9 bonus: Scary silverware

 

Scary Silverware (1999) Chapter heading illustration for privately published cookbook. Pencil, ink, colored pen, scanned and digitally cleaned, then finished in Photoshop. About half digital and half traditional, and one of my earlier tablet pieces (not much was done with the stylus though - it really isn't that difficult to draw a glob with a mouse...).

I did several illustrations for this cookbook project, including two page layouts and two old-style cookbook glamour food shots.

ETA: oops! I thought this was posted today, but it wasn't, so there'll be another up in a few.